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whatwhat wrote:

dogma wrote:However, I have no money and owe about 120k in student loans.

Is that a typo, if not I'd like to know which bank you used, they seem generous.

Nope, but it is after accrued interest. Its also from several banks.

Wow, in that case I'd like to ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON? Regardless of the accumulated interest your loan would have had to be ridiculous in the first place.

Honestly what the hell did you waste all that on? I have never heard anything like it. And I've heard some major student debt stories before. Yeh ok, business loans but a student loan? Not to mention the banks who gave you the money who blatantly made no checks into your interest with other banks, no wonder we are in a recession.

Did it ever occur to you when you were going to get them loans it wasn't particularly a good idea? Not to mention reading up on student loans which are, like temprus said, unprovable in bankruptcy.

And you're wondering why a grad school wont give you financial aid? They probably read up and you and decided burning it was a better idea.

djphranq wrote:Talk about sins of the past...

...I'm reading some awesome stuff in a book called Overthrow. It deals with some activities the United States partook in in relation to other countries. Its a crazy good read so far.

Do they perhaps talk about how the CIA helped to overthrow the duly elected president of Guyana?

GG


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whatwhat wrote:Wow, in that case I'd like to ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON? Regardless of the accumulated interest your loan would have had to be ridiculous in the first place.

Honestly what the hell did you waste all that on? I have never heard anything like it. And I've heard some major student debt stories before. Yeh ok, business loans but a student loan? Not to mention the banks who gave you the money who blatantly made no checks into your interest with other banks, no wonder we are in a recession.

What What....let me guess you failed Diplomacy 101 didn't you?


GG

whatwhat wrote:Wow, in that case I'd like to ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON? Regardless of the accumulated interest your loan would have had to be ridiculous in the first place.

Honestly what the hell did you waste all that on? I have never heard anything like it. And I've heard some major student debt stories before. Yeh ok, business loans but a student loan? Not to mention the banks who gave you the money who blatantly made no checks into your interest with other banks, no wonder we are in a recession.

Did it ever occur to you when you were going to get them loans it wasn't particularly a good idea? Not to mention reading up on student loans which are, like temprus said, unprovable in bankruptcy.

And you're wondering why a grad school wont give you financial aid? They probably read up and you and decided burning it was a better idea.

Whatwhat in Dogma's defense a high end private school, without scholarships, including dorm etc could rack up that much. I've not seen that myself but yea, it could happen. Back when I went to school (the Mesozoic Era) there were absolute dollar limits for undergrad though. Has that changed Dogma?

-As I noted, find yourself a rich wife, or give blood, lots of blood.
-Renouce worldly goods and become a monk. Tell thebanks/gov to fig off you bunch of imperialist dogs.
-Get yourself appointed as a government czar. They don't pay any of their obligatinos back, or even taxes. Politicians same to same plus cool Caribbean fact finding junkets.
-Join up with MDG and take over a small Latin American country. Call yourself El Dogma, and make 40K the required national pastime.

Frazzled wrote:

Whatwhat in Dogma's defense a high end private school, without scholarships, including dorm etc could rack up that much. I've not seen that myself but yea, it could happen.

Whether it's true or not you would still have to be extremely ignorant to get in that position. What was wrong with one meal a day and two part time jobs like the rest of us?

Frazzled wrote:Back when I went to school (the Mesozoic Era) there were absolute dollar limits for undergrad though. Has that changed Dogma?

There are still limits which I guess is why he's had to go to multiple banks. Who obviously failed to check he had a student loan elsewhere. So the real question is, at which point between 0 and 120k on these multiple bank trips did you start to wonder when you were going to pay these loans back?

Tyras wrote:
I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties.

Thanks. After typing all that I forgot to get to the point, which was that misfortune does happen. Many of the bad situations in this world have little or nothing to do with the actions we take ourselves. Upward, or even lateral, mobility isn't always an option.

Tyras wrote:
Alot of the points I see in race based debates is that people are in bad situations by default due to their ethnicity, and have less of a chance than other races. I disagree.

Its all a matter of statistics. Those stricken by poverty are not likely to move up in life due to a lack of relevant assets. African Americans are an example of a contiguous minority with a higher tendency to be afflicted by poverty. They aren't in bad situations by default, but the probability is certainly higher. Hence scholarships and admissions programs which specifically target African Americans address the issue of poverty, and the potential existence of a racially identifiable underclass.

whatwhat wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Whatwhat in Dogma's defense a high end private school, without scholarships, including dorm etc could rack up that much. I've not seen that myself but yea, it could happen.

Whether it's true or not you would still have to be extremely ignorant to get in that position. What was wrong with one meal a day and two part time jobs like the rest of us?

Frazzled wrote:Back when I went to school (the Mesozoic Era) there were absolute dollar limits for undergrad though. Has that changed Dogma?

There are still limits which I guess is why he's had to go to multiple banks. Who obviously failed to check he had a student loan elsewhere. So the real question is, at which point between 0 and 120k on these multiple bank trips did you start to wonder when you were going to pay these loans back?

Whatwhaat under the US student loan program (again back in my day before the telegraph) student loans were handled in aggregate via the Government. They weren't on a bank by bank basis-there was no "credit review," for guaranteed student loans.

Its all a matter of statistics. Those stricken by poverty are not likely to move up in life due to a lack of relevant assets. African Americans are an example of a contiguous minority with a higher tendency to be afflicted by poverty. They aren't in bad situations by default, but the probability is certainly higher. Hence scholarships and admissions programs which specifically target African Americans address the issue of poverty, and the potential existence of a racially identifiable underclass.

Agreed but the redress is not efficient. Its more effiicent if programs targeted the poor. Race is not the real issue, poverty and lack of educational opportunity, are.

Frazzled wrote:Whatwhaat under the US student loan program (again back in my day before the telegraph) student loans were handled in aggregate via the Government. They weren't on a bank by bank basis-there was no "credit review," for guaranteed student loans.

Its the same in the UK. But banks offer student accounts which usually offer large overdrafts. As Dogma stated himself...

dogma wrote:Its also from several banks.

large overdrafts? Please define in this context.

Getting back on topic. As far as America goes, I think our government owes "something" to the living decendents of Jim Crow and segregation. I don't think that means monetary reparations. But I don't have an issue with affirmative action. Many black people were forced into ghettos due to discriminatory laws both written and unwritten. I watched a documentary where they explained the "roots" of the L.A. gang problem, where this was a by product of black people during the 50's, 60's and possibly 70's being forced to live in areas like Compton and Watts. They became ghettos because many of the black people that fled the racism of the south to get jobs in the southern California defense industry lost their jobs after WWII, and couldn't find more work. That's only 50 to 30 years ago, and those peoples children and grandchildren are still living with the legacy of Racism and seperation.

And don't forget that black people moved to California to escape the harsher racism and discrimination of the south, yet they couldn't fully escape all forms of racism. If you actually research these things you see a huge cause and effect in place.

As far as the Native Americans, I don't know what to say there. I don't know a whole lot about the issue, except the historical stuff that happened during the 18th and 19th centuries. As someone mentioned it's a different world now. The world is full of stories of peoples being conquered by one people. Even Great Britain has a history of being conquered by different people..... not many native celts left in Great Britain? First it was the Romans, then anglo saxons and Vikings, and william the conqueror(After the Romans not sure in what order to be honest but the point of one people conquering another is made)

whatwhat wrote:Wow, in that case I'd like to ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON? Regardless of the accumulated interest your loan would have had to be ridiculous in the first place.

22k a year. The cheapest, and worst, in-state option would have cost me about 19k a year. Higher education is ridiculously expensive in the states.

whatwhat wrote:
Did it ever occur to you when you were going to get them loans it wasn't particularly a good idea? Not to mention reading up on student loans which are, like temprus said, unprovable in bankruptcy.

I did research them, and I knew they were unlikely to be rescinded. This was the best of the options available to me.

whatwhat wrote:
And you're wondering why a grad school wont give you financial aid? They probably read up and you and decided burning it was a better idea.

Why would my level of debt have anything to do with fin-aid? You don't repay fin-aid.

Frazzled wrote:
Whatwhat in Dogma's defense a high end private school, without scholarships, including dorm etc could rack up that much. I've not seen that myself but yea, it could happen. Back when I went to school (the Mesozoic Era) there were absolute dollar limits for undergrad though. Has that changed Dogma?

I actually had quite a few scholarships, though they amounted to very little when stacked against tuition. Of course, they were all from third party sources; most of my school's scholarships were reserved for international students.

But yeah. The massive cost of undergrad has pretty much done away with absolute limits. When a bottom tier state school is ~80k over 4 years that will tend to happen.

Frazzled wrote:
-As I noted, find yourself a rich wife, or give blood, lots of blood.
-Renouce worldly goods and become a monk. Tell thebanks/gov to fig off you bunch of imperialist dogs.
-Get yourself appointed as a government czar. They don't pay any of their obligatinos back, or even taxes. Politicians same to same plus cool Caribbean fact finding junkets.
-Join up with MDG and take over a small Latin American country. Call yourself El Dogma, and make 40K the required national pastime.

Rich wife is an option, I know plenty of rich girls. Though its more likely that I'll learn Arabic and sell my soul to the CIA/State Dept/NSA/insert government agency.

whatwhat wrote:
Whether it's true or not you would still have to be extremely ignorant to get in that position. What was wrong with one meal a day and two part time jobs like the rest of us?

Still wouldn't have covered it.

whatwhat wrote:
There are still limits which I guess is why he's had to go to multiple banks. Who obviously failed to check he had a student loan elsewhere. So the real question is, at which point between 0 and 120k on these multiple bank trips did you start to wonder when you were going to pay these loans back?

The limits only apply to the loans issued by individual banks. The actual amount drawn in aggregate is not capped. As for how I got them: cosignatories.

As for when I would pay them back: presumably after law school, which fell apart as an option after the economy went to trash and everyone's endowment tanked.

Man, I've done the poverty thing. WIC, and food stamps were used during two periods of my life. When I was a kid, and for the first year after I got out of the Army. I've lived on a turkey sandwich a day so my kid could eat a good meal. Alot of people do the life by ramen plan during school, myself included. My graduating highschool class from Green County Indiana was eleven people. I didn't go to an upperclass school in a ritzy neighborhood. It wasn't the inner city, but hell everything other than the physical location is the same. Despite that, a few of us made something of ourselves. The rest ended up doing the same thing I complain about the inner city groups guilty of. They went to work at crappy minimum wage dead end jobs, or turned to crime (silly meth heads), and then complained that they couldn't achieve anything because they were at a disadvantage. I call bull . I went the military route. Another guy went an apprentiship route (first with an electrician, then a plumber and now he runs his own A/C and heating business), the third worked her ass off at multiple jobs to put herself through school and is no a physical therapist. None of us had an advantage over anyone else in the class.

Where were the scholarships to address our poverty? Does white trailer trash classify as a racially identifiable underclass? I hold my position that anybody, with exception to the infirm or physically/mentally challenged with the will power to improve their lot in life can do so (even the physically challenged have some amazing success stories).

Frazzled wrote:Declare banktruptcy. Problem solved and you stick it to the evil bankers who made the mistake of giving you a loan (ok mostly average Joe as the government guarantees but who cares, if its good enough for California its good enough for me).

I see what you did there.

I don't believe you truthfully advocate such a base abandonment of personal responsibility, in what amounts to socialising the loans.

You'd be surprised KK... Is that different then saying the government should pay for education through university?

Tyras wrote:Man, I've done the poverty thing. WIC, and food stamps were used during two periods of my life. When I was a kid, and for the first year after I got out of the Army. I've lived on a turkey sandwich a day so my kid could eat a good meal. Alot of people do the life by ramen plan during school, myself included. My graduating highschool class from Green County Indiana was eleven people. I didn't go to an upperclass school in a ritzy neighborhood. It wasn't the inner city, but hell everything other than the physical location is the same. Despite that, a few of us made something of ourselves. The rest ended up doing the same thing I complain about the inner city groups guilty of. They went to work at crappy minimum wage dead end jobs, or turned to crime (silly meth heads), and then complained that they couldn't achieve anything because they were at a disadvantage. I call bull . I went the military route. Another guy went an apprentiship route (first with an electrician, then a plumber and now he runs his own A/C and heating business), the third worked her ass off at multiple jobs to put herself through school and is no a physical therapist. None of us had an advantage over anyone else in the class.

Where were the scholarships to address our poverty? Does white trailer trash classify as a racially identifiable underclass? I hold my position that anybody, with exception to the infirm or physically/mentally challenged with the will power to improve their lot in life can do so (even the physically challenged have some amazing success stories).

The obvious difference of course is that, except for during the post civil war Reconstruction period, white people weren't systematically forced into menial, jobs and forced to live in segregated ghettos. There is a difference in being poor and being poor because a government helped to make you that way.

Having said that, I don't personally think there will be a need for programs like affirmative action for much longer. How long? I can't say, but the fact that there is a black president (who I didn't vote for by the way)is an indication America is moving forward and making progress.

GG

Frazzled wrote:You'd be surprised KK... Is that different then saying the government should pay for education through university?

OH SNAP!


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generalgrog wrote:The obvious difference of course is that, except for during the post civil war Reconstruction period, white people weren't systematically forced into menial, jobs and forced to live in segregated ghettos. There is a difference in being poor and being poor because a government helped to make you that way.

Would you tell that to someone who was born into poverty now? That his or her poverty wasn't as important or as "bad" as someone elses, and that they didn't deserve as much assistance because the government wasn't oppressing people of their race before they were even born?

And let's be real here, there were plenty of European and Asian immigrants that were extremely oppressed, post-slavery and post-Civil War (and even before that, although they weren't technically enslaved). You know, like Irish- and Chinese-Americans.

generalgrog wrote:The obvious difference of course is that, except for during the post civil war Reconstruction period, white people weren't systematically forced into menial, jobs and forced to live in segregated ghettos. There is a difference in being poor and being poor because a government helped to make you that way.

Having said that, I don't personally think there will be a need for programs like affirmative action for much longer. How long? I can't say, but the fact that there is a black president (who I didn't vote for by the way)is an indication America is moving forward and making progress.

GG

How long do the effects of the Post Civil War Reconstruction last? The Irish, Italian, Polish and German immigrants all had thier turns in the ghetto treated like second class citizens and forced into menial work to scratch out an existence, and more recently than the civil war. Racism and discrimination is a real thing, I am not denying that. I don't think it's as big a problem today as it was years ago even within my life time. I certainly don't believe that it's preventing people, anymore than it prevented me, from improving thier lives. Today there is alot of self segregation as far as neighborhoods go. Like I said earlier it's a cultural thing, people are more comfortable around their own culture.


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Damn, Hordini went one further. I forgot about the Chinese immigrants on the west coast. Been on the other side of the contry most of my life.

Frazzled wrote:You'd be surprised KK... Is that different then saying the government should pay for education through university?

If everyone declared themselves bankrupt instead of paying off their student loan it would come to the same thing.

When someone is bankrupted, any debts owed to companies are cancelled, which the companies take as a loss, which is deductible from their tax bill, which means the government gets less tax and has to spend less on everyone else or else tax everyone else more.

dogma wrote:

whatwhat wrote:Wow, in that case I'd like to ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON? Regardless of the accumulated interest your loan would have had to be ridiculous in the first place.

22k a year. The cheapest, and worst, in-state option would have cost me about 19k a year. Higher education is ridiculously expensive in the states.

whatwhat wrote:
Did it ever occur to you when you were going to get them loans it wasn't particularly a good idea? Not to mention reading up on student loans which are, like temprus said, unprovable in bankruptcy.

I did research them, and I knew they were unlikely to be rescinded. This was the best of the options available to me.

whatwhat wrote:
And you're wondering why a grad school wont give you financial aid? They probably read up and you and decided burning it was a better idea.

Why would my level of debt have anything to do with fin-aid? You don't repay fin-aid.

Frazzled wrote:
Whatwhat in Dogma's defense a high end private school, without scholarships, including dorm etc could rack up that much. I've not seen that myself but yea, it could happen. Back when I went to school (the Mesozoic Era) there were absolute dollar limits for undergrad though. Has that changed Dogma?

I actually had quite a few scholarships, though they amounted to very little when stacked against tuition. Of course, they were all from third party sources; most of my school's scholarships were reserved for international students.

But yeah. The massive cost of undergrad has pretty much done away with absolute limits. When a bottom tier state school is ~80k over 4 years that will tend to happen.

Frazzled wrote:
-As I noted, find yourself a rich wife, or give blood, lots of blood.
-Renouce worldly goods and become a monk. Tell thebanks/gov to fig off you bunch of imperialist dogs.
-Get yourself appointed as a government czar. They don't pay any of their obligatinos back, or even taxes. Politicians same to same plus cool Caribbean fact finding junkets.
-Join up with MDG and take over a small Latin American country. Call yourself El Dogma, and make 40K the required national pastime.

Rich wife is an option, I know plenty of rich girls. Though its more likely that I'll learn Arabic and sell my soul to the CIA/State Dept/NSA/insert government agency.

whatwhat wrote:
Whether it's true or not you would still have to be extremely ignorant to get in that position. What was wrong with one meal a day and two part time jobs like the rest of us?

Still wouldn't have covered it.

whatwhat wrote:
There are still limits which I guess is why he's had to go to multiple banks. Who obviously failed to check he had a student loan elsewhere. So the real question is, at which point between 0 and 120k on these multiple bank trips did you start to wonder when you were going to pay these loans back?

The limits only apply to the loans issued by individual banks. The actual amount drawn in aggregate is not capped. As for how I got them: cosignatories.

As for when I would pay them back: presumably after law school, which fell apart as an option after the economy went to trash and everyone's endowment tanked.

So basically you saw something you couldn't afford and yet still bought it.

I am having trouble believing you, either you're not telling the truth or you're incredibly dumb to have gotten yourself into so much debt over education.

A lot of American students have very large student loan debts, whatwhat. 100k-ish in debt is not that uncommon, unfortunately.

Still insanely dumb. Everyone gets into a bit of debt yeh, I know I did. But I know first hand that I would have had to be incredibly stupid in order to get to that level of debt.

Or to look at it another way, he took a risk, as advocated by Tyras, and the gamble didn't pay off.

You're right he did. He should have asked the first question in risk taking, can you afford to lose? Ussually when the loss is spending the rest of your life paying off debt the answer is no.

I think a student at an English university is looking at £3,000+ per year for tuition (three year degree) plus living expenses.

Frazzled wrote:You'd be surprised KK... Is that different then saying the government should pay for education through university?

Wouldn't that be nice?

Anyway, I don't think I personally owe anything to various groups that may have been oppressed in the past. I have no records of my family owning slaves or screwing over sharecroppers, but even if you do it's not your fault where you're born. I'm gonna get out my little socialist soapbox and hop on it. (Blame it on the Swedish blood)

While we may not be personally responsible for the oppressions of yesterday, we do owe something to the descendants of those who were screwed over who still feel the effects today. And this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. If you recall early American history, the first people oppressed in America were young British men who worked as indentured servants until the rise of slavery. That's why I advocate a Scandinavian-type democratic socialist system. with socialized healthcare and education. I refuse to believe people who claim that the poor are all lazy. There are very smart people who can't go to college in the U.S. because of money. There are stupid people in the U.S. who can go to college because they have the money and/or the connections (See Also: recent University of Illinois BS. Now I don't feel bad about not getting accepted there). The playing field is anything but even, but we could work to make it more even.

The important thing that I want to address is that we aren't guilty for things we didn't do. As Tyras pointed out, even European immigrants have been discriminated against in this country. The past discrimination is not what we need to worry about, just how to make sure that the "ghettos," whether inner city or rural, have an opportunity at improving their lives. That's something that our current system does not do well enough.

Affirmative action has great intentions, but it's the wrong way of going about solving that problem. If it's solved by better education in the early years and publicly funded universities, there will be no need for it.

(Side note: I realize that socialized healthcare is a big issue. Let's leave opinions on it for elsewhere, I'd rather not derail this thread.)

Kilkrazy wrote:Or to look at it another way, he took a risk, as advocated by Tyras, and the gamble didn't pay off.

It hasn't payed off yet. Nothing is instant. Who knows if his efforts and decisions won't land him a six figure income job. He could pay down his debt and have a nice retirement (resisting political rant).

whatwhat wrote:I am having trouble believing you, either you're not telling the truth or you're incredibly dumb to have gotten yourself into so much debt over education.

If it was for education, I think it was well worth it. Get it any way you can kids.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:You'd be surprised KK... Is that different then saying the government should pay for education through university?

If everyone declared themselves bankrupt instead of paying off their student loan it would come to the same thing.

When someone is bankrupted, any debts owed to companies are cancelled, which the companies take as a loss, which is deductible from their tax bill, which means the government gets less tax and has to spend less on everyone else or else tax everyone else more.

BNut if its guaranteed its paid by the US government, so defacto same thing no? I'm just being obnoxious again.

I've lost you. I don't know all the ins and outs of the US student loan system.

Guaranteed student loans are in fact, guaranteed by the US gov. I am not sure if its a full 100% or not though, or if all the loans in discussion were guaranteeds. Mine were.